FASHION DISTRICT
The New Mart Has a New Restaurant
The big restaurant space on the ground floor of The New Mart has been vacant for months after Fred Eric's Tiara Cafe closed its doors on March 19 following six years of business at the locale. It was sad to see such a creative and healthy-oriented place close down, since it was so in tune with the local fashion scene with its window displays of LA designer creations.
But a new restaurant has taken over the high-ceiling, big-window space. Amante Pizza and Pasta, which for more than two years was on the ground floor of the California Market Center, had a soft opening on Oct. 7, said Executive Chef/Partner Eda Martin, who runs the California/Italian-style restaurant with Stan Dimitrov.
Martin, who is new to the eatery, is promoting healthy but tasty cuisine with farm to table fresh ingredients that are nutritious but delicious. "I am trying to do Italian style as authentic as possible with California ingredients," Martin said, who is also a registered dietitian.
Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be things like pizza, (in fact there are 11 different kinds of pizza on the menu), but the pizza will have three kinds of crust: a white crust, a whole-wheat crust and a gluten-free crust. There are eight kinds of pasta and five different salads to chose from. "The menu has changed toward healthy dining," Dimitrov said.
Down the road, Martin plans every month to highlight a different culinary region in Italy. There are 20 in all.
The interior looks completely different from the Tiara Cafe, which had more pastel colors and a feminine air about it. Dimitrov has splashed the walls in a vibrant Tuscan orange and decorated the upper walls with scenes from Italy.
Meanwhile, Dimitrov has joined forces with Enrique Feldman to convert the old Amante restaurant space at the CMC into Kiki's Mexican Cantina, which like the new Amante, will be open until 11 p.m. in the evenings.
